Raven Meridius
Raven Meridius, also known as Irvana, was a pureblooded vampire who was a member of the Cyrodiil Vampyrum Order. A Daughter of Coldharbour who followed the manifesto, an ancient tenet of the secretive vampire clan in Cyrodiil, she was one of the most powerful vampires in Tamriel's history. Her entire life as a ancient was the culmination of a centuries' old plot to save the vampiric tribe from within. Throughout her centuries Raven lived a double life, simultaneously keeping an untarnished career as an ambassador of the empire and a noblewoman while learning the mysteries of magic and vampiric power. Raven, her brother and her father, all exceptionally skilled and powerful in Night Powers and Blood Magic, were able to conceal their identities from mortals for centuries. Though she followed the tenets of the manifesto like a religion, Raven Meridius disagreed with the current elite members of the clan known as the ancients. Though she respected them at first, she gradually lost his trust in the Order Vampyrum, believing it to be flawed and tainted with the current leadership who had hinted in using subjugation to bring control to themselves and even revealing the vampiric masquerade within the empire. Infuriated and fearful that mortals would one day seek to begin a war if they discovered vampires walked among them in stations of power, Raven secretly began plotting against the clan's ancients in a plan to return the clan to its roots. Raven, under the guidance of her father, was able to cooperate with her brother to quell a growing vampiric problem that rivaled the chaos in the days of the Tharn Family. The problem grew enough that the elders and ancients of the clan saw them as a potential threat that could inspire other foreign vampire clans from crossing the borders into Cyrodiil. Raven and her family did bitterly anticipated the rise of vampire hunting groups, which was a minor setback for them but ultimately a tool they were able to use to quell the rise of the feral vampires. Raven presented a solution; to infiltrate the vampire hunting organizations and use them to exterminate the barbaric vampires. The ancients agreed and having their full trust in Raven, granted her leadership over the plan. Her cunning ideas went off without a hitch and through the skilled vampire hunters, her and her brother was able to have the growing pestilance destroyed in a matter of six months and in celebration hosted a party for the vampire hunters and all their supporters in a reformed fort. In their drunk revelry and festivity, Raven's brother trapped all of the members in and caused a fire that burned them all alive. The scapegoat was a thrall Raven had turned who was ultimately executed for his crime. As her father privately searched to usurp the Cyrodiil Vampyrum Order with her, Raven and her brother manipulated politics, resulting in the invasion of Akavir and the death of Uriel V. In the wake of the crisis, the High Council voted to elect Raven as member of their council while her brother became High Chancellor. As hundreds of thousands perished in the invasion, the vast majority of Imperial citizens rallied behind Raven and her brother, thus giving him enough support her in name of security of a potentially weakened empire and transfer most of the palace's executive authority to her own office. After succesfully gaining power and prestige to her family, Raven set the next step of her plan in motion; exterminating the ancients once and for all before they risked exposing the clan. Raven Meridius formed a covert partnership with the Glenmoril Wyrd using a thrall as a puppet. With the aid of the witches she gained potions that would cure vampirism, though the process took over a year. During that year she gained sympathizers from her own clan that agreed that the old ways of manipulation and secrety was the ideal lifestyle of the Order and that anything else was a threat and perversion of the natural way. With the help of her allies Raven sought to save her fellow clan members from a possible doom. She patiently had the potions made and brought to her office under the guise of fine wine that she stored away. During her rise as an elder in the Order Vampyrum, Raven distributed the potions in old bottles of human blood that was said to have been preserved for centuries for a special occasion. The ancients, not foreseeing her treachery, drank the cure at the time time in a ritualistic toast. They were instantly cured, and immedietly killed by those allied with her who kept their vampirism. In that single night Raven saved her people through acts of treachery and deceit, which ironically was the very methods the ancients used to reach their craddle of power. After the demise of the ancients Raven and the High Council(who were ignorant of the secret plot happening behind the scenes) effectively wielded considerable control in Cyrodiil and virtually everyone who lived within it, rebuilding the most powerful military force in Cyrodiil after most of the Legions had perished in Akavir. Birth & History "Do you feel the hate? Anger? It is the source of your strength. This night you have delivered yourself into my hands. I hold the power of life and death over you, little vampire. Someday, you will possess that power over another. It is the lifeblood of your kind. You will devote yourself to the idea of domination and power, and I in turn shall bless you."- ''Molag Bal.' Raven Meridius was born through rituals of the Daughters of Coldharbour. She was yet in her mother's womb when her mother was given to the Daedric Lord, and had been tremendously changed. Verona, fearing her child may pass onto death, made a second pact with Molag Bal. That her child would grow healthy and strong and yet have the purity of vampiric blood adrift her veins. Molag Bal would see to this if the girl would pledge her unholy life to him for the centuries to come. Raven was born in Cyrodiil, the youngest child of Aluc Cardius, and Verona. She was raised in her family's old castle, situated somewhere along the Colovian Highlands. From an early age, Raven identified herself s something different from her brother. After the apparent death of her mother, she grew up recognizing the great and ancient power within herself and believed she deserved better, which led to her drilling herself to perfection before she would begin her plans for self-improvement. Because the Order itself was beneath worldy notice, Raven was instilled with tenets of secrecy, patience, and deception. Intelligent and highly ambitious, Raven desired her father and brother to take on a more active role in the empire's politics, both to increase their own wealth and power, and to pave the way for a vampiric influenced government. She was dissapointed to learn, however, that her father was no longer a member of the Order Vampyrum due to past trangressions, and him and his offspring were excluded from clan affairs. This led to Raven's murderous plotting coming into place at an early age, believing that the Order Vampyrum were being led by blind, misguided vampires, a fact she would soon see manifest when the very empire threatened to crumble from infighting. As an adolescent, Raven studied in the Imperial University and also enrolled in the Arcane University. Her family's social status provided her with powerful high-profile connections, such as other nobles, aristocrats and even governmental officials of the Imperial Palace. Raven also recorded, in her preface in the Journal Vampyrum, that she took a vested interest in ancient knowledge as a child. Employing her family's vast wealth, she took to collecting as many inscrutable runes and ancient texts from the temples of Morrowind through the market as she possibly could. Obsessed by the mysteries unraveled in each tome, Raven at once saw the key to realizing her real ambition: the acquisition of power. All that was left was opportunity. Power Through Secrecy ''"Know first that we are no simple tribe of savages, tearing throats with the orgiastic abandon of our scattered, tribal brethren. Ours is a civil fraternity, to which we are bound - every one - by our dual hunger for flesh and influence. By the virtue of Imperial structure and bureaucracy, Cyrodiil has become our stronghold in the third era, and we suffer no savage rivals within our boundaries, reveal ourselves to none, and manipulate the hand of society to mete out our agendas."-Manifesto Cyrodiil Vampyrum. The Cyrodiil Order Vampyrum long been one of the proudest lines of vampires. Its members work hard to maintain a sense of honor, genteel behavior, and leadership. A sense of noblesse oblige ''has been rooted in the clan, joined by the genuine belief that the Order know what's best for their members. They see themselves as the enforcers of tradition and the rightful rulers of vampiric presence in Cyrodiil. Unsurprisingly, they're members have long been chosen from the ranks of nobility and privilege, whether nobles or merchant princes. They live their lives believing that deception and manipulation are the surest means of protecting vampires from the growing mortal masses, and protecting their own way of life. Recognizing the mortals of the empire to be a proud and superstitious people that would sooner stake and condemn any vampires than consider living with them let alone beneath them, the ancients did not seek to rule them directly or make themselves deities as certain vampires had done, but influenced events from behind the scenes by procuring favors from the province's citizens. This tactic of establishing political connections would be used throughout the centuries. Instead of using thralls, many of the Order's members used proxies to deliver favors and contacts, allowing themselves to grow rich and powerful while the mortals remained ignorant of their true nature. This strategy would be widely adopted in the centuries to follow and would serve the Order, even enabling some of its newer members to take a bolder approach. The first years after the foundation of the Order were spent in singleminded pursuit of power and influence; Most members recognized that the goals of their fraternity could not be achieved in a single lifetime. The early years, rather, were mostly concerned with laying the foundations upon which they can reap the fruits in the coming centuries. With the destruction of the native clan in Cyrodiil, the members of the Order had their own personal accounts of coin and territory. The only members of the clan were those not only gifted with Bal's blood, but also having their own power base and sphere of influence; wealth, connections, etc. With the financial leverage at the Order's disposal, the members were able to forge a vast intelligence-gathering web. With bribery, seduction and a keen mind were they able to hide themselves behind a perfect masquerade. The Order's member's time was certainly not spent idly. They waited and watched in secret, having the luxury of observing the empire and mortals, taking pride that their altered blood meant their prey and enemies never even knew they existed. As the centuries passed the Order began changing from within. Members disfavored living in secrety and using manipulation to control the minds of mortals in exchange for direct control. Though they waited when the time was right to carry out their plan for ultimate domination, some of their latest members were enamored by the idea that the Order had to be preserved and that only in secrecy and living in shadow could the vampire truly thrive lest he be the instrument of his own downfall and those as well. Political Rise in the Empire "''Second, devote your pursuits to the procurement of influence, political and otherwise. Our strength is not in physical numbers, but in skillful manipulation of society."-Manifesto Order Vampyrum. Raven began her political career at a very young age, carefully hiding her true nature as a vampire. In the Imperial Palace, she joined in as a scholar after graduating from the Arcane University, and thus worked her way upward. After a four-year stint in the political field, she was appointed court mage. Raven lost many of her elections than she won in her young career, missing out on many important appointments in the political field. She secretly elected to maintain a low profile so as to allow her to discreetly disappear from the map in order to focus on her vampiric training and powers in dark and remote places of Cyrodiil. By the time she stepped into the field of politics in the Imperial City, she was already aware that the prominent members in the High Council looked down their noses at the more provincial counts and aspirant rulers, expecting very little to nothing of important from them. Raven knew that, she too, was also in with the other hopefuls from the corners of Cyrodiil, those who, having never been very experienced in the field, would in short order be overwhelmed by the greater politics of the Imperial City. Rather than do anything to prove herself to the elites, Raven encouraged them to keep that mindset. Once again she failed to take advantage of opportunities that could have granted her position on important places with powerful people, and unless bothered, she never shared her motives with her colleagues; the truth was that Raven purposely sought to maintain her advancements slow, knowing that the more she kept it that way, the more harmless she seemed to her rivals. The performance eventually worked; the powerful politicians of the empire, lost in their own petty power struggles, only laughed at the young aspirant girl, and paid her no mind. As the years passed, Raven and her father decided, after the fall of Mad Pelagius, that politics was ripe for more bolder forms of manipulation. The Imperial City was festering with political corruption, both the citizens of the empire and other provinces yearned for strong central leadership. So, in order to place Raven in the upper echelon, her father planned for the current holder of the position to be assassinated. The Infiltration of the Thalmor in the Fourth Era. To Be Written. Personality. "She's quite the attractive woman...if you manage to go beyond the manipulative, power-hungry infant devourer." When a younger child, Raven was a small girl with straight black hair. As she matured by Bal's ritualistic power, she grew into an athletically built, strong woman of tall stature. She had long, lustrous black hair and eyes that were red as blood and yellow as liquid fire from her vampirism. She was often considered by those whom she came across as unnaturally beautiful, and she was fully conscious of her appearance. Because of the anonymity required by the Order, however, Raven carefully planned her life to make herself inconspicuous when necessary. Despite this, she often exploited full use of her appearance, taking advantage of her looks to support her when extracting information from other individuals. With time, Raven developed in cunning and manipulation, and Aluc Cardius became impressed with her deceitful and calculating nature. Nonetheless, Raven was considered no more than an heir to his legacy and one of the Order's saviors. While living in the Imperial City, Raven was often friendly to the mortals with whom she encountered. She also made use of bribes, as such attitudes would allow her to acquire most of the things she needed without drawing unwanted attention. During her early years, she displayed a hunger for knowledge and power and proved herself to be a studious girl, spending hours upon hours on her library in her father's castle. If she was not studying, she was learning aggressive styles of sword combat, and martial arts employed by her father, who learned them in his time as a human in Elsweyr. Though she drilled herself to perfection of the mind and body, she also learned to control her emotions. She relentlessly tried to rise above her own capabilities toward perfection and settled for nothing short of from her inferiors. As an offspring of Molag Bal, she believed that power and domination is what makes one strong and has the utmost confidence in her "divine power" which she believed she was born with. As a woman who wanted nothing less than supreme control, she likewise had amazing control of herself, able to react a certain way and hide her true emotions and feelings. One image she often created for herself was that of a pitiful victim of a random act of violence. Used to either lure in prey or to begin a web of deception. Before she was sent to society, Raven knew how vampires around Tamriel were vilified and considered "abominations" by the mortals. She believed, however, that vampires were not evil, and were beyond common morality as they were predators. Additionally to her mindset on that concept, she considered herself the embodiement of vampirism, as she carries the purity of her bloodline and that all mortals beneath her are either pawns or cattle for the slaughter, and are no more than children wandering about aimlessly, ignorant of their lot in life and incapable of truly fulfulling their calling. Though she becomes one of the head of her own vampiric clan, she nevertheless views lesser thin-blooded vampires as barbarian savages who taint the blood of vampyre, and goes out her way to find means of destroying them from the borders of Cyrodiil. Raven, though harboring hatred for lesser vampires, still was considered a hero by herself and members of her clan when she saved the Vampyrum from being revealed to the public, and from internal corruption among its members. While rising to prominance in the 3E 153, Raven became increasingly treacherous, betraying and killing numerous people who placed their trust in her. Ever since her younger years in tutelage under he father's feet, Raven's main goal was nothing less than grasping power. In her personal goal and by vampiric nature, she afforded to be eternally patient, incredibly intelligent, and an oustanding actress, able to adopt a façade of a normal and trustworthy politician and young noblewoman for a stupendous number of years. Her lack of a true loving relationship with her father, and a life devoid of a maternal figure had shaped her into a cold and calculating vampire. As both politician and Court Mage, she appeared as an unpretentious, giggling young woman, almost sisterly, with elegant attires. With her heart-warming demeanor, symbolic smile, and a unblemished reputation for being a humble and modest woman, she captured the hearts of many people in Cyrodiil, thus concealing her true motives behind the perfect masquerade. Her actions as a loving woman and a kind noble served only to shadow her true persona, that of a vampire of the Order. Raven was a manipulative, deceitful and seductive megalomaniac, using people and subtely bending them to her whims and having them carry out her desires. Raven had a particular obsession with purity and youth. Even though she was unable to age physically, she often chose to feed on newborn infants and children and virgins as well, believing a pureblooded vampire occasionally were better fed if their nutrition was pure. She was a known a patron of the arts, attending the plays and dramas whenever able and surrounding herself with unique antiques and expensive decorative items. Raven was also a tremendously skilled manipulator and strategist, having orchestrated countless events throughout Tamriel's history in Cyrodiil, including the expedition to Akavir, in order to secure a foothold of power. At times that a setback during those events that she did not initially plan for, she usually takes into account of this issue and reworks it so she emerges victorious in her plans. Since she was in no position to reveal his vampiric nature until the right time, she was forced to refrain from using her powers to protect herself while in an extremely dangerous situation that presented considerable risk to her life. Clothes & Apparel Raven has an assortment of clothes but she typically wears them in shades of greys and blacks, red and purple. When she isn't wearing her robes she has a regular set of casual attire that doesn't announce her noble heritage or her wealthy status. '' Swordmastery Despite being forever trapped in the appearance of a young woman, Raven was incredibly skilled in fencing and sword combat, and a master duelist with talents honed throughout the centuries. A vampire swordmaster, she learned to use any type of one-handed sword to utilize in combat. She was also was ambidextrous and could shift her fighting stance at whim—keeping her foes uncertain as to what her next move would be. A master of many techniques in combat and stances, Raven lured her opponents in, curbing her true capabilities, and then delivering a fatal blow when her foes imagined they had an advantage. When fighting at her fourth stage, the pureblooded Raven was a terrifying adversary. Raven had a superbly aggressive dueling style and augmented her abilities by using her vampirism, which allowed her to defeat experienced mortal warriors and even mages with efficiency. Her unorthodox styles of dual wielding allowed her to defend herself against opponents with little effort, only moving into offensive attacks when her enemy was either weakened or too frustrated. Raven mastered her art of the sword a degree that her attacks became a matter of instinct, thus allowing her to use her vampiric abilities to further augment her honed skills and her good acting skills lured enemies into believing she was a weak girl with no combat abilitilies until they witness it before their death. Due to her position in the courts and her eternal countance of a young woman, Raven seldom used her sword. She was never seen training. Most believed she was terrible at swordplay and only fancied herself a fighter, while others believed she wanted to intimidate others by walking around with two blades even though she had her own bodyguards. Though none suspected her true skill. She had created the perfect illusion. Vampire Powers and Blood Magic ''"What in oblivion could you possibly do to me?" "I can reduce your body to ash with storms of lightning. I can use my powers to conjure up your worst fears and your worst nightmares and bring them to life right before you. I can tap into your mind and seize it for my own. I can drive you insane with fear, tear apart your sanity, or control your psyche and make you a thrall and leave you a shell of a person for the rest of your life." As a vampire of the Order, Raven mastered her natural affinity for Blood magic and became an accomplished sorceress. She studied the doctrines of the Order and perfected her abilities, both supernatural and mundane; seducing people with a touch and a stare, driving people into a fatal state of insanity and despair by displaying to them their greatest fears, or simply unleashing lightning and fire attacks. Raven's connection with vampirism and the Ancient Blood was so deep to the point that she became a possession of the night, and the night became a possession of hers. As a pureblooded vampire, she learned how to master Blood Magic and Night Powers throughout her days and years. Though she relied more on her vampiric abilities, Raven took an interest in learning illusion and destruction magic. Raven was proficient in using lightning, and was used shock as both fatal attacks, and as means of torturing her enemies who would not succumb to her powers of seduction. If used to its full potency, she can instantly reduce one person or more into charred husks and ash. Raven also could cast blue fire as well, which is more intense than the red, orange, and yellow flames. She could also condense her fire, enabling her fire to cut through many objects. When formed into simple fireballs, the flames were concussive, and able to pulverize objects. She could also generate cloaks and shields of swirling flames which could withstand the attacks of other elemental spells such as frost or lightning. Irvana's mastery of her powers was such that even she at times wondered if Bal's power had been so strong in anyone before her, feeling a monster rising from the core of her self, impatient to unleash itself to the world. ■Vampire's Seduction: Raven can seduce her victims into a trance-like state and hypnotize them with her eyes. If their willpower is not strong enough, she can send them out to do her bidding by enthralling them. It can be noted she feeds on her victims by using this power whenever she diets from blood for two days. ■Reign of Terror: Aside from mundane use of illusion spell, Cyrodiilic vampires possessed the ability to form hallucinations within the minds of individuals by summoning their worst fears and silencing them, thus making them unable to use magic. Raven often used this when fighting against mages or necromancers, and her potent use of the power was able to drive a person near death, depending on the images she inflicted. A victim was able to survive if they had strength of will, though if not, the individual would descend into madness. Once Raven made her love claw her eyes out using this power in the Third Era. ■Embrace of Shadows: The vampiric power involved the manipulation of light and sound to render the caster invisible to the naked eye. Raven seldom used this, as she was well-fed on the constant basis, though times of chaos would pave the way for the use of this ability. Raven used Embrace of Shadows when escaping the carnage the Dark Brotherhood unleashed against the Crimson Scars, and when battling a group of necromancers.